Accurate Miniatures

B-25B Cowl Fix

provided by Bruce Radebaugh, edited by Lynn Ritger

The following was provided to me tonight to offer to the Hyperscale community as a service to all those modelers who would be interested in reconstructing the cowls of the B-25B kit (I specify the B as I have heard from several reliable sources...no, I can't say who...that this is being corrected, we shall see).  Bruce will be sending more info directly, which I will post on this site per his request.  Any questions or errors of omission will be passed to Bruce.  I also want to state unequivocally that this is NOT by any means an indictment of the quality or efforts of the fine folks at Accurate Miniatures.  As silly as this sounds, I feel it can't be stressed enough as there are certain parties which regard any criticism of AM kits as "sour grapes" and a direct attack on Accurate Miniatures.  It is not.  This is to help those who want to fix a known problem (which appears to be the fault of the toolmaker, not Accurate Miniatures, from what I've heard...reliable source again).  I also want to point out I don't plan on making a concentrated "modeling tips and hints" site, as Brett Green and others (the Three Steves at Aircraft Resource Center and Scott van Aken at Modeling Madness come to mind) do a great job of keeping up with this stuff.  Thanks to Bruce for providing this info, and I look forward to providing more as it becomes available.

Here is the quick fix to the problem with the cowling:

The Problem: The cowling is too short and the opening in the front is too narrow. The cowling should be 36 inches from the front to the line of the cowl flaps and the opening should be 36 inches in diameter  .

The Solution:   I first center drilled two pieces of plastic, a thick one and a thin one. I then etched a circle the thick piece to the diameter of the kit opening and cut the thick piece out. I then etched a 3/4 inch (36 inches in 1/48 scale) diameter circle on the thin piece, and cut it out. I then centered the two pieces and glued them together. I glued a piece of 20 thou plastic card stock to the back of ach cowling to make up for the shortness and I filled in the depression that is on the top of the cowl. After the cowls dried I sanded the cardstock, and filled area, to match the diameter of the cowling. I put the plug that I made out of the thick and thin plastic into the kit opening and etched a line around the 3/4 disk to use as a guide to enlarging the front opening. I cut away the plastic up to my etched line on the front and then sanded and slightly beveled the opening to achieve the correct appearance. I then rescribed the panel lines and using a hypodermic needle with a beveled edge, I went back and recreated the Dzus fasteners on the panels.  Attached are three photos.  Photo 1 shows the plug I made and the cowling with the filled area and card stock sanded down, and my hypodermic needle. Photo 2 shows the how to etch the front opening using the plug. The last photo, Photo 3, shows the kit opening and a corrected cowling opening.

PHOTO 1:                         PHOTO 2:                         PHOTO 3:

And now, the exhausts:

While I await Bruce's text on this procedure, I'm providing the photos he sent earlier (I have no idea what I did to the text...).  Fortunately, the photos are fairly straightforward.

Photo 1:                             Photo 2:                             Photo 3:

More nacelle goodies:

The fuel vents on the engine nacelles didn't appear until the B-25C, according to Kinzey's B-25 in Detail.  They should be removed for a Doolittle Raider. The videos shot on the Hornet confirm this.

Here's the situation with the nosegear door.

Problem: the nose gear door isn't molded correctly.

The first picture shows the panel lines AM has molded (black wash added for emphasis). The second picture shows a comparison of the Monogram nose gear door and the AM kit. The third picture shows the kit with rescribed door. Below that are two pictures of the original condition J model in the Warner Robins museum with actual measurements provided for those who would prefer to measure and scribe their own rather than use the Monogram kit as a template.

Photo 1:                             Photo 2:                             Photo 3:

Measurements of door and surrounding area: